Anya And The Powers that Be
by keswindhover
Summary: Anya meets an old friend in difficult circumstances


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Anya and The Powers That Be

PAIRING: Anya, Tara friendship

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RATING: PG-13

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FEEDBACK: Very welcome, to keswindhover@yahoo.co.uk

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BETA: Miss Murchison - thanks!

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SPOILERS: To the end of Season 7

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SETTING: Set after the events of the series finale

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DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to the Jossverse. I'm borrowing, and I promise to put them all back in good condition, and only slightly used...

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NOTE: This was my entry for the Iconography flashfic challenge (). The direction was to write a story of 1,000 words or more, based on an icon provided by the organisers. I got Anya, and I have speculated about what happened to her soul after that unfortunate incident with a sword seperated it from her body:

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"What do you mean, this is it?" 

The soul of Anya - former Swedish housewife, former Vengeance Demon, former Scooby, current Dead Person - quivered with indignation.

"This is a cave!" it hissed. "What kind of miserable excuse for Valhalla is this? I died in battle, you know! I expected a Golden Hall, with a ceiling of burnished shields, a groaning table of provisions, and lots and lots of mead and beer! _Not_ dreary, smelly little cave." 

Tara Maclay quivered indignantly in her turn. "My cave does not smell. And even if it did, you couldn't smell it. You're dea .... um, that is incorporeal."

"That's right," said Anya's soul indignantly, "rub it in, why don't you, _Tinkerbell!_" 

Tara fluttered her wings self-consciously. She wished the Powers That Be had not seen fit to saddle her with the tiara, and the ballet outfit, and the wings, when they had appointed her to be a Fairy Godmother, but apparently there were, quote, 'Traditions To Be Maintained'. Today she had at least left aside her white frock and wand, since she had no visitations planned on her calendar. Instead, she was clad in comfy stretch jeans, and a halter top, which left her back and wings free. The tiara was firmly in place though; she'd put it on this morning from sheer force of habit. 

Anya's soul made a sniffing sound. "As for the smell, this place reeks of patchouli, I just bet."

Tara sent a guilty glance over towards the incense burner sitting on an uneven rocky shelf, and then took in the rest of her cave. There was no need for Anya to be so disparaging about it. Lots of nice comfy pillows to lounge on, intricately woven throws and rugs, silk screen prints, and a really great picture of an ancient forest bathed in moonlight that she meditated in front of. There were also row upon row of books, ranging from big leather bound volumes with ominous titles like the _The_ _Possibly Apocryphal Prophecies of the Stelae Sitters of Sardinia,_ right through to the latest China Mieville paperback. It was home.

"Anyway," Tara said again - since Anya's soul didn't appear to have been listening the first time, "as I said, this isn't a heaven dimension. It's Limbo."

Anya's soul, which was manifested as a little blue ball of energy, spat out angry blue sparks, and Tara winced. She really didn't need burn marks on her rag rug - making that thing had taken her ages!

"I want Valhalla - and I want my body! How can I eat an endless feast in the halls of my ancestors, and schtup every brawny warrior in sight, when I'm a stupid little ball of blue sparks? Endless carousing, and all the food I can eat without getting fat, that's what I expect," Anya's soul yelled, "including a roast suckling pig, and some really good cabbage and onions. Nobody in America can make proper boiled cabbage. And I've earned it, dammit!"

"You were very brave in the battle, it's true; plus you were on the side of Good against Evil, which is helpful," said Tara gently. "But unfortunately you also spent eleven hundred years before that torturing and killing people." 

"That was the demon Anyanka," said Anya's soul quickly. "Totally soulless. Not me at all. I wasn't there."

Tara took her tiara off, and scratched her scalp absently. "I'm afraid that the writers who invented you didn't make that clear - at all. There's a big debate going on at the relevant Committee about that very point, right now. And until they decide, you're in Limbo. And since the Committee has nearly seven hundred members, convening a meeting is an absolute nightmare, and getting a decision once they do meet is even worse - and they always change it the next year in the form of a supplementary memo. So you could be here for a few centuries. They've asked me to put you up since we knew each other from before - and it's lovely to see you," she added politely, if insincerely.

"Centuries! I am not staying in this cave for centuries," said Anya hotly, "I want my body back. And I want it right now!"

"Don't you have to fight to the death every day in Valhalla, as well as feast every night?" said Tara, wrinkling her brow as she tried to remember her _Alternative Religions _module. "That doesn't sound so great." 

Anya's soul shivered a bit. "I think that's only the men," she said unconvincingly, and then brightened, "I know - I could be a Valkyrie! I'd make a wonderful Valkyrie." She buzzed about a bit, enthused by the notion of galloping around plucking brawny men from battlefields.

Tara opened her mouth to argue about how you became a Valkyrie, and then shut it again. There was, after all, no indication that Anya would go to Valhalla just because she was a person of ancient Swedish origin who got cut in half with a sword. She found herself wishing weakly that Anya's soul would calm down. The energy being thrown off in every direction as it bounced around was giving her a magical headache. 

"You'll get your body back when they've decided where you're going - wherever it is," she said soothingly, "and meanwhile you really are a very pretty blue, you know, you match my curtains."

Anya's soul screeched to a halt, and glowed brilliantly. "Pretty?" it said, furiously, "Matching your curtains? Oh, lucky me, now I'm part of a Fairy Godmother's color co-ordinated home decor! My body is _gorgeous_! Hundreds upon thousands of men have lusted after me, you know - and plenty of women too. I have bone structure! _And _perky bosoms!" 

Tara nodded wearily and cursed the Vigilance for Uncommitted Souls Committee, who had landed her with a temperamental soul essence in her living room. She moved to the aforementioned blue curtains, which were pulled across an alcove at one side of the cave. "Want to see what's going on down below?" she said.

"Have you got a scrying glass?" said Anya's soul, marginally distracted from thoughts of her perky but missing bosoms.

"No," said Tara, "but I have got CNN." She pulled the curtain aside to reveal a modest sized television. "Come and see what effect closing the Hellmouth and empowering girls all over the world is having!"

No thanks," said Anya's soul morosely. "I'm dead, aren't I? It doesn't make any difference to me."

Tara sighed, and dropped the curtain. Anya's soul really wasn't showing the right kind of attitude to persuade the Committee it was heavenly material. But there was no point saying so. She switched on the television to CNN. The news was exciting, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the humming blue ball of energy make a restless circuit of the cave, and hear it making various disparaging noises as it lit briefly on the furnishings and fittings, and an extra loud "blech!" when it stopped in front of the moonlit forest. She resolutely ignored it, until it eventually came to a halt, hovering between her and the television screen. 

"So," Anya's soul said, after a long moment. "Tell me about being a Fairy Godmother now, why don't you?" There was a smirk audible in its voice.

Tara gave up on the tv, and sank back with a sigh. "Okay, but before you even start, I've already heard all the 'fairy' jokes."

Anya's soul threw off a multitude of sulky blue sparks - it knew loads of off-colour fairy jokes! Tara was such a spoilsport. It looked around disparagingly. "So what's the arrangement? You get a tiny cave, some cheap ethnic furnishings, and cable tv - and in exchange they get your eternal service through the millenia?"

"It works out pretty well," said Tara, feeling defensive. "And I feel I'm doing a valuable job helping young women who have some really major challenges in life, and some difficult choices to make." She looked around her cave. She'd been pretty pleased with it before Anya arrived, stirring her up. Although ... "Although, it's a little bit lonely sometimes," she admitted.

"But lots of sex, surely?" said Anya's soul. "I mean a Fairy Godmother is just another type of succubus isn't it? Sliding into the bed chambers of all these nubile young women, feeding off their hopes and fears .."

"Anya!" 

"I bet you slip your clothes off, bewitch them with your voluptuous naked body, and then make wild, abandoned love with them all night long."

"Anya, stop!" 

"And in the morning you can grant them their boring little wish, too; if you haven't already just done it."

"Please stop!" Tara swallowed convulsively, her wings aflutter. "To do any of that would be wrong," she said. "I would be taking advantage of my position."

"I don't see why," said Anya's soul. It bobbed over to an artfully arranged scatter cushion at one side of the cave, and managed somehow to give an impression of reclining there. "It's a win/win. I'm sure when I was a restless, passionate young virgin, I'd have been delighted to be ruthlessly seduced by a succubus Fairy Godmother who looked like you." 

Tara put her hands over her eyes. Anya's soul was going to hell all right.

Anya's soul rolled about on the cushion a little. "You could even have had an armful or so of blood as well, if you'd liked - a fair exchange, especially if you'd granted my wish for my sister to be turned into an enormous warty wild pig." She sighed nostalgically, "That was my dearest wish for many years of my girlhood, you know."

"I didn't know," said Tara, fanning herself a little, and heading to her mini fridge to get a bottle of cold water, "but somehow I'm not surprised." She took a chilled bottle from the fridge and waved it for emphasis, "And you really don't understand the role of Fairy G ..."

"HEAR YE! UNCOMMITTED SOUL OF ANYANKA ANDERSDOTTER, AKA ANYA JENKINS!" boomed a Great Voice. 

Tara jumped and dropped the bottle. 

Anya's soul darted off its cushion and flashed bright blue. "I'd have to be deaf as well as dead _not _to hear you!" she shouted. "Shouting is rude, you know!"

"WE ARE NOT SHOUTING," said the Voice, offended. "WE ARE SIMPLY UNIMAGINABLY HUGE, AND ALL PERVASIVE, THROUGHOUT SPACE AND TIME. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE, YOU KNOW."

"Whatever," muttered Anya's soul. "Mr Shouty Mouth," it added, non too quietly.

"Ahem, anyway," said the Voice, sounding rather annoyed, but nonetheless moderating its tone. "The Committee Ordained For The Assessment Of Qualification For Soul Ascendancy For Characters Exhibiting Moral Ambiguity in Fiction (COFTAOQFSAFCEMAIF for short) has reached its final decision."

It paused portentously.

Anya's soul settled back on to its cushion again, and appeared to examine its non-existent nails.

"You should note that there is no appeal against our decision, in this dimension or beyond," said the Voice even more portentously.

Anya's soul managed to suggest that it had given a rather delicate little yawn.

"We can redeem you or condemn you, with a single word!" bellowed the Voice, with maximum portentousness. _"Do you understand, you tiny trembling little figment Of fiction?"_

"You're shouting again," said Anya's soul.

"WE ARE _NOT_ ..." The Voice contained itself with some difficulty. "But that is irrelevant. We have made our decision."

Anya's soul lost some of its insouciant appearance as the moment of truth drew near, and pressed itself nervously against the cushion. Tara, who had picked up her water bottle, now unscrewed the cap and took a quick swig to wet a throat suddenly gone dry.

"We have decided that the status of your soul is not entirely clear, due to dereliction of duty on the part of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Writing Staff, ultimate responsibility for which lies with Mr Joss Whedon, Eminence Grise of Televisual Pop Culture, and Buffy Millionaire. We therefore find that you must be insinuated into the plot of 'Angel The Series', and have your status clarified to our satisfaction. Expect a magic related storyline shortly!"

And the Voice vanished.

"Well!" said Anya's soul, relaxing now the prospect of burning in Hellfire had receded, "What a disgraceful cop-out! Committees are good for nothing but passing the buck." 

With a sudden 'pop!' she was housed in her body again, lying on the cavern floor in a rather undignified position. 

She sat up and gave Tara a provocative look. "So what do you do for fun around here, if you _don't_ seduce virgins? Got any really violent video games, or Farelly Brothers movies? I fancy a laugh after all that drama." 

Tara sank onto her backless stool (wings were _so_ difficult) and sighed, gloomily counting off the days until October, when Angel The Series was due to begin again. She had a feeling her houseguest was going to have outstayed her welcome long before then.


End file.
